


Unsound Inverses

by sp8ce



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Blow Jobs, Complicated Relationships, Dean Winchester Has Abandonment Issues, Dean Winchester Has Anger Issues, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Established Relationship, Fear, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Human Castiel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:41:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29836881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp8ce/pseuds/sp8ce
Summary: The thing about kissing Cas is, it burns.---post finale, explores their navigation of a romantic relationship.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	1. Reverse

The thing about kissing Cas is, it burns.

Him alive, him somehow in love, him human and pliable under Dean’s fingers, face caressed in his hands, it’s perfect. It doesn’t seem real. Dean’s not entirely sure it  _ is  _ real. But when it hits him, when he’s alone, marvelling at the concept, he’s kicked into a high gear he’s never known before. It’s like Cas’s lips feed ignition, like they’re playing with gasoline, and Dean can’t comprehend it, can’t make sense of the fact it’s really happening, and that doesn’t matter when it’s happening, but the second he comes back to his senses it’s like he’s engulfed in flames.

It reminds him of purgatory, reminds him of fighting for his life every day, surrounded by monsters trying to kill him. Sharp pain in his chest. Sleep deprivation. Terror. Purity. Certainty. The edges get blurred. The world is filtered. The panic never leaves. The only way to distract himself, the pure adrenaline flood of bloodshed. Praying to Cas desperately, never getting an answer. Well, at least there’s an answer now. Dean presses kisses against Cas’s throat like it’s a form of worship, and he’s so lost in it, everything else melts. Cas may be the gasoline, the fire, the whole fucking conflagration, but he’s also the cure. The terror melts whenever Dean can make Cas moan.

He just hopes it’s enough. He just hopes he can be enough. He’s nearly certain that he isn’t. He’s nearly certain it’s over, every second his skin isn’t on Cas’s, and he’s lost in the endorphins of a high he’s been chasing for so long it felt like a part of him. He’s nearly certain Cas will walk out the door and never come back. No matter how much of Dean that Cas takes with him.

Cas has left before. Cas has left because of him. It eats away at him every second of every day, and he knows in some ways he should be glad. Glad Cas has healthy boundaries, glad Cas won’t take whatever Dean shoves at him because the edges in his brain have frayed in ways he doesn’t remember, and he is rarely not drunk or hungover, rarely not on the edge of aggression, venom ready to be thrown from his lips. It’s good, he thinks. It’s good that Cas would leave him. He should, already, right now. Get it over with. Because at this point, when he leaves? It will be disintegration.

He almost wants to wreck it now, just get it over with. He wants to go to some bar, sleep with anyone that isn’t Cas, come back and throw it in Cas’s face. He pictures it, pictures Cas’s face, pictures it relieved, or betrayed and absolutely devastated. He thinks of how he destroyed previous relationships, how with Cassie it was telling her the truth (but Cas already knows everything about him, what could he use to destroy this with honesty? There are no defenses left). With Lisa and Ben, it was erasing their memories. He considers that, just to be masochistic, at one point, considers finding some spell (and Cas is human now, it seems possible) and making Cas capable of living a life free of him forever. He almost throws up when he thinks it, becomes inconsolable until he’s downed the rest of the bottle of his dwindling whiskey. That wouldn’t be Cas’s choice anyways, Dean reasons. But he knows he’s being selfish.

The truth is, he’s hurt Cas enough. He needs to wait it out. He always thinks he can, that he won’t hurt Cas unnecessarily out of pure fear, but when Cas goes to leave his room, leaves to go do anything else besides playing teenage makeout session with a self-loathing piece of shit human, Dean snaps at him. 

“What could be so fucking urgent now anyway? You’re just human now,” he spits, and it doesn’t feel cruel as the intent he had boiling under his skin, but he sees the way Cas casts his gaze down.

“I’ll just be in my room. I’ll see you later, Dean,” he says, not giving any real answers, and just leaving Dean there, roiling in his guilt and terror.

He needs to get a handle of himself. He doesn’t want to push Cas away, not really. He just wants Cas to leave, so he won’t leave, so he’ll stay. He just wants the fire to be over, for electricity to not frazzle him to his core. He just wants Cas so much it loops back around to wanting him gone. Because it’s all so much. And he’s already not enough.

Dean thinks of Cas before the empty took him, thinks of how Cas thought he could never have this, thinks of how  _ he  _ thought he could never have this, resigned himself so many years ago. This is precious, this is sacred, this is something fragile and priceless and beyond anything Dean has really ever known. It’s different, and the weight of years chokes him. He loves Cas so much. He never returns the words anymore, when Cas whispers it into his mouth, like he has to make up for the years they lost with the words between them unspoken. It stays choked in his mouth still, but it’s okay, because he can kiss Cas back, and Cas likes it so much. That much Dean can tell. Cas likes kissing him. It’s baffling and incredulous, but it’s clear as day, and that he can do. He could spend his whole life, just trying to give Cas pleasure.

He knows the anger is irrational, knows that the agitation that turns into fury in his shaking hands at the concept of Cas leaving him is a defense mechanism of his worst fears. He knows he knows, but he’s fighting this tinted red in his brain, and it all flips. Sam wakes him up one day, after it took hours for Dean to fall into a restless sleep from his amped-up state, and Dean goes out to yell at him about it. Sam apologises, though there’s sarcasm in his tone, but doesn’t push it. Which makes Dean angrier because since when does Sam not argue back? Sometimes, he gets so lost in all that has happened over the years, he just feels like a kid again around Sam. And it’s unnerving, how much Sam’s changed. Dean wonders how much of that was Hell, and how much of that was him.

He doesn’t press the issue. He can’t apologise because the rage is still there. He turns away.

It reaches a head, however, like some crescendoing climax coming to a screech, when Dean can’t find Cas one day. Dean often checks by Cas’s room when he wants to hang out with him and doesn’t come in when he hears muffled voices, Cas talking to someone on the internet, probably (who? Why hasn’t he told Dean? Has he found someone else?), but then there wasn’t even that. So Dean searched the bunker, high and low, gave Cas a ring that went to voicemail, and finally he found himself in the garage with an empty space where Cas’s car should have been.

He realises it’s happened. Cas left again. He didn’t even say goodbye (Cas just said he loved him, gently spoken close to his ear, a kiss on his cheek, and maybe that was it? Maybe “I love you” actually always means “goodbye”. Maybe that’s why Dean hates saying it.)

Dean frantically calls again, but the phone doesn’t even ring this time, and Dean’s suddenly sure Cas has blocked him, too. That Cas is fully and utterly done with him now. Maybe he did find someone else, someone better, online. Or maybe he just realised that his whole attraction to Dean was a fluke, that he was just attached because Dean was one of the first humans he knew personally, and it confused him. Maybe he regretted everything they had ever done.

Dean’s panicking now, and he’s pretty sure the world is ending, or maybe there was just never a point to it not ending. He’s not sure, but he’s pretty sure he’s dying, or he’s dead, there’s too much terror to clarify, and some switch flips in his head, and the anger is gone. All that’s left is the fear. It reminds him of childhood. He can’t catch his breath. He’s not sure how long he stays like that, crouched on the hard, cold floor, incapable of breathing (or is he breathing too well? What does it mean if your breath makes your teeth buzz? What sort of oxygen intake is that? The thought makes him want Cas more. He’d know the answer). Eventually, he finds his way back to his bedroom and gets completely wasted.

It’s several hours later when he hears a knock on the door. He’s not sober, but the room is spinning some, and he doesn’t think he can face his brother right now. Not like this. But his anger is gone, all of it. Like it’s turned into some repressed coils in his lungs again, under the weight of the fear, instead of what he’s been accustomed to now for the longest time, that reverse.

Someone opens the door, and it takes a minute for Dean to register it’s Cas, and he’s not entirely sure if he’s awake, but he’s always been good at being capable of telling what’s real or not (whatever hand God may say). 

“Cas?” Dean slurs, and it’s not until he tries to get up to turn a light on does he realise the extent of his nausea. 

“Is it alright if I come in?” Cas asks, as if Dean would mind if Cas spent literally every second with him. As if Dean doesn’t want to wake up beside him every morning. As if they weren’t already roommates supposedly in love with each other, and Dean wasn’t already greedy for  _ more _ .

“‘Course, Cas,” he says instead, the sinking feeling in his gut at Cas’s absence back. Is this goodbye? Did Dean just overreact like a pathetic fool earlier? Cas comes in and sits on his bed, smiles at him.

“Is it alright, that I’m here?” Cas asks, and it’s perplexing.

“Yeah,” Dean responds, uncertain. “Gotta say, buddy, I like seeing you on my bed.” The statement seems to fluster Cas out of whatever follow-up he may have had for a second.

“I meant in your home,” Cas clarifies. 

“You mean our home?” Dean says. Cas’s eyes dart to him then lower. 

“Yes,” Cas says. “I know last time I was human, the situation with Gadreel added complexity about my ability to stay here, but I just needed you to know, that I’m not currently hunted or at risk of homelessness if you’d prefer me gone.”

“Shit, Cas? Added complexity?” Relief floods through him.  _ Cas isn’t leaving him; this is just insecurity. This he can handle.  _ The terror remains, but it’s manageable, and the anger is long gone. Mostly, all Dean feels, is the urge to comfort. The urge to convince Cas he should stay here.  _ He’s not at risk of homelessness? Does that mean he has someone else he wants to live with?  _

“I mean, I thought,” Cas seems very uncertain for a moment. “That wasn’t it?”

“Huh?” Dean feels very lost, just wants to find a way he’s better at soothing Cas, suck on his collarbone, leave feathery kisses across his shoulders. He’s not good at talking. But also he feels almost desperate to make sure Cas doesn’t leave, desperate to fix whatever made Cas drive away and not respond to his calls.

“It’s not important,” Cas says, except that it sounds very important. “I just mean, that there’s no reason I need to stay here.” The gasoline infiltrates Dean's system. It freezes instead of burning, leaving him frozen and confused. Something red still beats staccato in his chest.  _ There’s no reason for Cas to stay here  _ . Dean’s drowning, and Cas looks expectant, worried, or something. Dean can't register he’s here, even though the added urgency of response makes him feel like he’s motion sick from how fast the Earth is spinning with every second of inaction. He isn’t a reason.  _ He has to be a reason _ . 

“Hey now, free rent, my awesome cooking, Sam’s-- whatever you two bond over, and my memory foam bed? That’s not nothing, right?” Dean says, trying to play it nonchalantly, like he’s not a few seconds from dissolving. Maybe he was always the salt: a weapon, supposed purity, yet raises your blood pressure. Dissolves in water. Only useful with intent to harm or protect.

Cas smiles, a tiny raise of one side of his mouth, but it’s enough to know Dean’s done something right. 

“I do like your bed,” Cas says.

“What? Not my cooking?”

“You are a wonderful chef, but that’s not what I’m thinking about right now.”  _ Oh _ , yes, this is a territory Dean can succeed in.

“Oh, I see. Gonna tell me what exactly you are thinking about then?” Dean goads. Cas doesn’t say anything, staring intently at Dean’s lips, obvious, and some level of tension dissipates from Dean’s body, even though adrenaline is still surging, his heart racing. This, this he can do. Cas isn’t moving, just  _ looking _ , and Dean goes to capture his lips, certain, in some way, that he can be something Cas wants.

Fear spools in his chest in some different approximation. He knows that Cas will leave him. He knows it’s a matter of time. He knows there is no way in this universe or any other he is enough for Cas, and that’s even negating the fact Cas is billions of years old, an angelic being who’s saved him from Hell, no, it’s simply in the kindness in Cas’s eyes he could never match.

But maybe Cas has seen the stars. Maybe he’s seen the stars shift, or even form. Dean doesn’t know much about that or the timelines, and maybe he’ll ask-- after he gets Cas to moan more like that. He pushes Cas down on the mattress, finding this easier even with the pounding headache that has joined the cacophony of terror in his system. 

He stops for a second, breath fast over Cas, looking down at him. The way Cas looks at him makes him forget it, like he always does in the moment. Enraptured. Like Dean’s something precious to Cas, but the thought is so ridiculous, even if Cas says, in that very moment, “ _ I love you  _ .”

Cas’s breath is still a little uneven too, even if Dean takes a second, just looking at him, trying desperately to capture this moment. He knows he’s wrecking everything before they get a chance to make anything important out of it, but he needs something, something to make the disintegration shape in its wake. But Cas, Cas right now. He looks soft, almost, and Dean treasures him. Treasures the way Cas’s gaze hits him and every little mannerism he so associates with this biblical entity turned mundane has. It almost frightens him. Cas looks vulnerable. His heart swells. He loves Cas so much.

“This what you were thinking about?” Dean asks, tries to smirk to cover up how awestruck it makes him that Cas can look at him awestruck. He views Cas as strength and power, yet Cas will just look up at him dazed, stars in his eyes, and it’s intoxicating.

It’s too much.

“I like this very much,” Cas says. Cas then leans up, maybe trying to engage in kissing again, but Dean realises he can’t. He can’t even do that, and he pushes Cas down. Cas looks mildly surprised, testing Dean’s pressure down on his shoulders, not fighting him, just struggling slightly, perplexed yet endlessly trusting. “Dean?”

Dean thinks of the empty garage, the phone call that wouldn’t ring. He thinks of black goo and Cas disappearing before his eyes. He thinks of a phone call that wasn’t really Cas. He thinks of holding a trenchcoat in his hands, betrayal, and hatred so thick in his lungs until it breaks into the absolute broken desire for any chance to fix the lack of a frame the fabric used to rest upon. Only able to realise when he’s gone. 

It’s like the fight went out of him, and suddenly he’s looking at Cas, and Cas isn’t an enemy anymore. Not that Cas ever was, he’s not sure why that feels like an apt comparison: he meant it when he told Cas he loved him. Maybe it’s the act of loving itself that’s the fight. Maybe the fire went out. Maybe disintegration was upon them despite the fact Cas was staring up at Dean right now, somewhat confused and infinitely adoring.

The fire might be gone, but the fear isn’t. His hands tremble, and Cas must feel it.

“Dean, are you okay,” he asks immediately, actually then moving his hands, bending to meet Dean’s forearm, ready to push him away, or maybe just ready to grasp him.

“I’m fine,” Dean lies. That’s what he does, isn’t it? He understands his molding. He can’t fight anymore, he can’t fight the fear with fire and anger.  _ Cas died _ .  _ Cas was going to leave him _ . Every touch between them was too much electricity, even now, the moment suspended in static. He can’t do it anymore, can’t focus on how Cas makes him feel or what Cas feels like underneath him.  _ He has to be a reason to stay.  _

He knew Cas was going to leave, knew there was nothing he could do to stop this inevitability. But the desperate need to do everything he could to prevent that, to keep Cas’s attention, to be anything Cas wants just to  _ try _ , the desire ignites in his veins. He leans down finally, kisses Cas’s neck, savouring the way he hears Cas moaning, trying desperately not to focus on the intensity of Cas’s skin beneath his lips. 

He expects it to go well, expects he can succeed here, he’s always been so good at--

Cas asks him to stop, unsure from Dean’s earlier hesitancy, but if there’s ever a time for a fake bravado, it’s now. And if there’s anything Dean excels at, it’s that. It doesn’t take much to fluster and knock Cas off track, asking him if he’d want a blow job, insisting to give him a blowjob.

Dean acts cocky, though he’s far from it. Despite his long-term certainty and pathetic heartache over Cas, he’s not actually had a lot of experiences with men, and it makes him feel somewhat in over his head. He was very glad they were taking things slow, but now he just wants to give Cas undeniable pleasure.

“I-- okay,” Cas says, shy, voice deep and quiet. Dean continues to kiss his neck again, pressure on Cas’s shoulders because he’s afraid he’ll come undone if Cas starts touching him any more than this. He does move and shift to get Cas’s shirt off, but then Cas goes, hands on the edge of Dean’s shirt, and Dean can’t handle it. He pushes Cas down again, onto the bed, and Cas follows, pliant under him, lost in whatever endeavor he had subsequently been on. 

He thinks he does well, given the way Cas groans and grasps his hair. He thinks he does well, and the satisfaction pools in his chest, arousal in his crotch. The dread lets up, for a moment, until he realises what just happened, and he’s incredibly horny and he just technically had sex with Castiel for the first time, and Cas’s hands are moving down his pants, clearly trying to reciprocate. Cas’s touch is fire, and it’s too much.

“Hey, slow down, buddy, not interested tonight,” Dean says, voice super tight despite how desperately casual he aims to be. Cas looks momentarily confused, but stops immediately, instead wrapping his arms around Dean. He starts talking, and it’s admiration, and it’s too much because this is all fire, and this is too much, and Dean can’t handle the words out of Cas’s mouth or even seeing Cas in his bed if he’s going to survive the fallout. Not that he cares to, particularly, but the fear has a vice grip, and he’s not thinking clearly, anyways, because all his  _ body  _ wants to do is come to the new sights of Cas that will forever be stored in his brain. He needs away, now, that’s all that’s clear.

He says he has to go, leaves Cas blissed out and confused on his memory foam bed, retreats and finds some faraway bathroom to jerk off in. He spends hours cleaning unnecessarily, the kitchen, the fridge, his mind constantly supplying the imagery of Cas, the taste of him, the sound in which he said Dean’s name when he came. It’s too much. Dean feels like he’s been flayed alive, utterly exposed, even though it was Cas bare beneath him, not the other way around. He wants to keep Cas, he wants to love Cas, he wants to be capable of loving Cas. He wants it more than he’s perhaps wanted anything in his life besides his loved ones' safe. So he hopes it was enough.

Everything still felt like gasoline. But the fight of the fire went out. Dean’s burning, and he’s just trying to dodge the flames. He doesn’t know how to handle any of this.

He doesn’t know how to be a reason Cas would stay.


	2. X-Axis Rise

Dean doesn’t know if it’s all for the better or for the worse.

He can’t be around Cas, despite how badly it was all he wanted before. He can’t kiss him. He finds excuses to avoid him because yes, being away from him ignites the fire, the fear, makes him feel like liquid iron, molten, but he’s too terrified of what happens when they’re together too. Maybe he just can’t keep avoiding the significance of it. He’s still not sure if he’s processed any of it. Technically, besides Lisa, Cas is his longest-lasting relationship.

And Dean doesn’t really even know how to look him in the eye.

Where did the fight go? He feels deflated, feels uncoiled, feels frail. He goes to the garage every night and every morning to see if Cas’s car is there. He has to be certain. He has to be a reason.

He focuses on tasks, on making Cas and Sam meals, learning Cas’s new palette, and Cas smiles all the time like he can tell in everything Dean’s doing he’s saying the words he’s only been able to let out like a cascade that first day, desperate for Cas to understand, confused how he didn’t already. _I love you_. How can that not be a goodbye?

He won’t kiss Cas’s lips, but he’ll kiss his neck. He’ll kiss his chest, his hips, he’ll bring Cas pleasure, start his fleeing act. Try to get out of his head and ignore how much, how significant, it is to touch Cas so sensitive, to make him come undone like that. He’s unwound.

He can’t let Cas touch him, can’t stay to see the soft look on Cas’s face. That’s not the point. The point is succeeding at this. He’s in a role: he gets that now. He wants to succeed. He’s never succeeded at any role in his life. And maybe he saved a lot of lives when in a state of refusal, but he also never learnt how to be something someone would want around.

Maybe it’s good though, to have the anger dampen. It’s still an icy surface, but mostly he feels empty from it. Empty, yet desperate. Sam sometimes looks at him like he’s trying to study him. Dean thinks that there would be a version of Sam that would study him out loud. Now he eats the salad Dean makes him. Indulging Sam’s ridiculous diets since it takes five extra minutes: maybe not everything in the world has to be a fight.

It just goes on like that, and Dean’s almost certain maybe there is something sustainable in it. Even if he can’t look Cas in the eye when his hands are on him and even if he flees whenever he’s not trying to be everything for Cas because it’s all just too much. Cas seems to enjoy it, seems to enjoy _him_. Seems to be settling into being human, to some extent, and Dean thinks maybe he’s actually healthily adjusting. Like maybe he has a chance for peace. 

But a few weeks in, Cas messages him, “ _Can we talk?_ ” and suddenly the circuits in Dean’s wiring light up, and he’s terrified. He tells Cas _yeah, course,_ but when Cas comes into the room, he looks forlorn, and it’s menacing. Dean feels the panic so sharp and bright he can barely make sense of anything else.

“You know how to scare a guy,” Dean says. “‘We need to talk’ usually means nothing good.” It’s a reference to the fact they’re together, in some way, they never really discussed it, but they’re in love, right? Dean’s suddenly worried he’s said too much. 

“You know we... we don’t have to do this? Right?” Cas asks, and he looks imploringly, looks with that intensity that right now Dean’s terrified of. The gaze he can’t even meet when his hand is on Cas’s dick. His fist shakes. He presses it against the mattress he’s sitting on, stands up to face Cas, and feels weak in his legs.

“You wanna elaborate a bit on that, Cas?” Dean asks. He’s surprised his voice can remain so steady. He guesses he has to be. What other choice is there? If he screams at Cas, demands him to tell him what sort of bullshit lies hidden in his select words, then all it will do is hurt and end everything in soot. He needs to do better. He thought he was doing better. He can’t really feel his legs. It’s almost like he’s floating. He remembers that this is what it used to feel like a lot, back when he was around his dad, and for some reason that just makes him feel more blurry.

“You don’t need to be physically intimate with me,” Cas says, and it’s like a sucker punch. Dean's eyes close involuntarily, grimaces; he was sure this was going to happen, but somehow everything felt so surreal he feels out of touch with the fact it’s happening, now.

“What?”

“I am... a little unsure on the etiquette,” Cas admits, and Dean forces himself to look at Cas. Cas almost looks vulnerable, like he’s not the one breaking Dean’s heart right now. Dean clenches his teeth together so much it’s almost painful. Cas’s eyes dart around the room. 

“You mean breakup etiquette?” Dean asks, because he needs to hear the words from Cas’s mouth. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t sit around defining what it was. Cas died telling Dean how much he loved him. Cas told him a few hours ago that he loves him. It has to count for something. It has to matter in some way.

“I suppose so,” Cas says, and that’s about when the world starts spinning. Or shifting, Dean supposes. Disorientating. 

“Wow, gotta say Cas this is.... This is something,” Dean muses, because he can’t, because the ceiling looks like it could also be a television set that only shows shades in green and black and maybe the cold on his skin means he’s in hell, not that he needs to put a jacket on over his t-shirt. He wonders how many people get their hearts broken by angels. Does he need to join a club. The thought bubbles like golden crystals, and he’s not sure if much makes sense right now.

It sure is shitty etiquette. Cas told him he loved him just last night. Dean almost wonders if the reason why Cas has to do this now is because he could tell Dean was starting to believe him.

“I think... it’s for the best,” Cas says. 

“Oh, you think it’s for the best, huh?” Dean snipes, and yeah he shouldn’t. Yes, he knew this was going to happen, yes he should have been prepared. But he can’t stop the anger, can’t stop the feeling of betrayal at it. It reminds him distinctly of looking at Cas across the fire. Except now Cas can leave, but he won’t, he’s still in Dean’s fucking room, and Dean just wants to collapse and get super fucking drunk and pretend the fact that he wasn’t ever foolish enough to think Cas would stay.

But Cas does seem upset at the tone, grimaces, stays so still in place. Human or not, Cas was ethereal. Dean’s hands start trembling when he finally realises _wow, I’m never going to kiss him again. And I don’t even remember the last time I actually kissed his lips_. He puts them behind his back. They can have their chance to shake when he’s cracking open the whiskey. Which needs to happen, immediately. Because Cas is just standing there, witnessing how much Dean is collapsing in on himself. He looks sad, like he’s pitying Dean. Dean doesn’t need that. He wasn’t the one who confessed his undying love for Cas (I mean he did, but not _first_ ), and he isn’t the one breaking Cas’s heart right now. So Cas can stop looking like he is.

“Yes, I assume that to be true,” Cas says. Dean rolls his eyes. 

“Well, great, Cas,” Dean says, trying to find words as they’re clawing up around his throat and mouth. “That’s just. Really fucking great, Cas.”

“Dean, I’m--” Dean absolutely cannot hear Cas apologise, not for this. Not for not loving him.

“What the fuck are you even still _doing_ here, Cas? I got the message.” It makes everything go still, the sudden harshness, volume. Dean cannot stand this, not at all. He thought he was prepared, but he’s pretty sure he’s dead already, and it’s ridiculous, ridiculous, but all he can think of is all the years, all the time, all the love he has for Cas, how intense it is, how he knew everything was going to fall apart, yet here he is anyways, wondering why it feels like he’s swimming.

He needs to break down. He needs to get so fucking drunk he can’t see. He needs to get down on his fucking knees and pray that Cas won’t leave him. He needs Cas gone, so he can just sob like he hasn’t since the last time Cas disappeared in front of his eyes.

He can’t make much sense of Cas, and he’s trying to not seem as affected as he is, even if the pretense is bullshit. But Dean also thinks Cas looks devastated, like it’s splayed across his face, and it makes Dean even angrier because Cas is the one doing this. Dean didn’t even go out and do something to destroy this. He simply just wasn’t enough.

“Cas, I _get_ it. _Leave_ ,” Dean says, and maybe it’s a little harsh, but it’s not even with intent to harm. He’s so good at that, at destroying people, but that’s not the point here, and Cas still looks like Dean cut him down completely. It’s tiring. It’s tiring that even when he does try, even when he does everything he can, he’s still not enough. Anger, defences, destruction aside. He’s just not good enough.

“Do you mean that?” Cas says, and honestly Dean’s been so caught up in suddenly remembering anything about Cas at all and being so thoroughly hit with despair he can’t process what’s happening, coming back, then being hit again, like he’s on some beach being attacked by waves, but what’s the fucking point, he never got to go to the beach with Cas either.

“Yes. Get. The. Fuck. Out,” Dean articulates, tries to make it cold, not fragile, not shattering ice, but freezing water. Robust and flexible. 

Cas nods minutely, and Dean hears the sound of the door shutting behind him, and he can finally let the tension leave him. He thinks he would have just collapsed, like all the drawstringed tension finally released from him, but he’s motivated. He needs to be drunk, immediately. He needs to stop remembering. He feels nauseous, sick, sharp hook in his chest, heart still somehow on fire, breaking; the sensations overlap and contrast and compare and make him feel like he’s about to throw up.

He drinks more whiskey, and at least some calm is able to come back. He realises the ceiling seems shadowed. He thinks he sees a message in it about how deeply he has failed. That would make sense.

He keeps having memories hit him, knock him off guard, split open his psyche with pain, and he sobs, he’s fucking sobbing, and it doesn’t fucking matter. He needs to go to a bar, where he’s not alone, but not surrounded by people who know, so he won’t be this expressive and simply get piss drunk. But he doesn’t have the energy for it. Not when he’s remembering what Cas looked like the night before they went to trap Raphael. The light in his eyes. The affection.

It’s not until he’s so drunk the world is a hazy dream, and the pain has receded momentarily, that he realises that he was just a coward. That the last month and a half, he’s been acting like a fucking coward, and now Cas is gone, and he never gets to experience anything with him again. He’s also going to still have to _face_ him, which somehow gives him solace, but living with the ex angel that just broke your fucking heart? Dean drinks more. Tries to forget what Cas sounds like when he’s coming.

He’s a coward. He thought it would help, when everything ended, if he maintained some defenses with Cas. But the truth is all it meant was now he’ll never know what it’s like to experience things he spent years dreaming of with Cas and probably will continue to until the day he dies. And maybe that would make it more painful. Like how this right now is more painful than whatever he felt when he watched Cas leave for his date with Nora. But that doesn’t stop the fact he’s a coward, doesn’t stop the fact he regrets it so deeply, doesn’t stop the fact that if everything crashed and burnt just like he thought it would, he didn’t even get to feel any of the memories they were making when they were.

He hates Cas for it. He hates that Cas told him constantly that he loved Dean, even when Dean couldn’t even make himself repeat it back. Hates that Cas never asked Dean to stay, more than once, never convinced Dean to kiss him again when the fire went out and the fear shifted to something more insidious. He hates Cas would actually want what Dean spent years in acceptance that he would never have, just to then realise that yeah, Dean is not good enough for him.

But it’s not Cas’s fault Dean didn’t savour it. It’s not Cas’s fault Dean was too afraid to even process he finally got what he always wanted. It’s not Cas’s fault Dean isn’t good enough for him. Cas is good, strong, one of the best beings in all of creation and holy on top of all of that. It was ridiculous for Dean to get caught up in any of this. He should be considering himself lucky. But instead, he’s just thinking about how he can’t remember the last time he kissed Cas on the mouth.

It fills him with such despair, and he feels desperate. He can’t stop Cas from breaking up with him. He knows that. But there wasn’t any sudden change, right? And Cas seemed more than happy with him just earlier that day. So maybe he could have one kiss, one goodbye kiss. Surely that would seem logical. He could ask, in any case, and Cas could decline him, and Dean could deal with whatever psychological repercussions that could bring. It’s not like it could bring some sort of consequence greater than this.

When he goes to stand up, he stumbles, spills whiskey on his shirt. It takes him a moment to go and change then, setting the bottle down clumsily on the ground and hearing it slide for a moment. He eventually makes it out the door and goes towards Cas’s room, knocks, despite the fact it’s past 3am, because he’s certain he won’t have the courage to do this sober.

But Cas doesn’t answer, so he repeats again, saying his name. But when Cas still doesn’t respond, and Dean’s sure he’s made quite the cacophony on the tapestry of this door holding him back, he starts panicking. He checks to see if the door is locked, and it isn’t, and he goes in, and realises Cas isn’t there.

But what’s more, is that there isn’t anything of Cas’s there either. 

Dean’s vision swims, and he scours for any sign of Cas, his laptop, checks all the drawers for clothes, and yeah, maybe that’s an invasion of privacy, but it doesn’t matter because they’re all empty. He trips over his feet and almost falls, trying to race towards the garage, and there it is: that empty space.

Cas didn’t just break up with him or end whatever stupid excuse of a relationship they had. Cas really just left him. Cas is _gone_.

And that’s when it twists back towards anger. Because he never would have done any of this if he knew this was how it would end up. Everything shifts back to that infiltrated, noxious fire. Dean can’t see straight, and he’s not sure how much of that is the alcohol and how much isn’t. He means to make it back to his room because he’s sure he’s about to pass out. But first, he needs to message Cas. He’s livid in a way that obscures everything, even the harsh lighting of the garage.

He passes out on the concrete for several hours before he makes it back to bed. And he regrets absolutely everything. But mostly he regrets not being able to become a reason for Cas to stay.


End file.
